# Threshold of Disbelief **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 6, 2018, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689 "2018-12-06T17:22:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/21 "2018-12-07T13:31:39Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Is it worse than _[2012](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXdBzpRDR5I)_ ? (Link goes to a Dara O’Briain bit about the science in the movie) I don’t think I ever saw **2012** , but I did see **The Day After Tomorrow** , and **Geostorm** makes _that_ look like a freakin’ documentary by comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/22 "2018-12-07T13:54:54Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Speaking of lack of wardrobe malfunction in superhero movies, there’s the climax of _X-Men United_. That description sounds like _X-Men: The Last Stand_. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/23 "2018-12-07T13:56:25Z")
I just note the issue and then go on to enjoy the movie. If it’s a good story, nitpicking the details is just showing off to others how smart your think you are. For instance, the geography in the Sherlock Holmes movies is nonsensical. But the movie is still a good one. _The Day After Tomorrow_ was wildly wrong about its geography, and only works if Manhattan is on a turntable, but it’s a fun movie. _The Core_ has lousy science, but the story is strong. It does bother me if they base a plot on a historical anachronism (though not always: _Inglorious Basterds_ was a terrific movie); that’s cheating to make the story work. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/24 "2018-12-07T14:17:07Z")
I loved Ant-Man as a kid, and part of the canon was that he had control over size and density. So he could float on an air current (often explaining this to the reader) until he got within reach of the bad guy’s jaw, then “controls to full density” and WHAMMO! This was true for The Atom on the DC side, too (Ray Palmer had belt controls adjusting white dwarf star matter… why do I remember this?). > [@D\_Odds](#): > > I love superhero fare, but the big “lifting things” often gets me, such as when Supergirl lifted a submarine out of the water. Now, I’m not a structural engineer for submarines, so maybe I’m wrong, but I doubt there is any spot on a submarine where two hands could support its entire weight… One of my favorite superhero bits was in the otherwise-forgettable _Superman Returns._ A passenger jet has lost power so Supes shows up and grabs it by the wing… which snaps off. He looks annoyed at himself and dives after the now-plummeting plane. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/25 "2018-12-07T14:26:29Z")
> [@Dropo](#): > > _Ant-Man_ was annoying because the hero retains his weight and strength when miniaturized…yet Michael Douglas has no problem carrying a miniaturized tank on a key chain. I had no problem with 95% of the “bad science” in Ant-Man & Wasp but the fact that the miniaturized cars could keep up with the full sized cars really annoyed me for some reason. I think because I used to read the Sears catalog and daydream about running the RC cars along the expressway at 60mph before I learned what “Scale speed” meant. If I was able to figure this out by age 12, these guys should know it too! Each time I saw Bucky do anything with his metal arm, I thought “That should have torn his arm right out of its soft fleshy socket”. But then all the stuff like “Iron Man would be smashed inside his suit on deceleration” or the ridiculous Hulk physics never bothered me at all. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/26 "2018-12-07T14:53:37Z")
The errors in police shows reach from here to the moon. A major one is the cop stops the car with the bad guy in it and does not search the car and tell him to get out of it. No, the cop allows the guy to stay in the unsearched car so, at the right moment, the guy can pull out a guy and shot the cop dead. Cops are not that stupid. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/27 "2018-12-07T15:05:23Z")
My wife always like to point out when someone is seriously injured and/or incapacitated and it apparently occurs to _no one_ to call for help or perform CPR, and the victim is literally just left for dead. Also, people who are not shot in the head dying instantly. This happened constantly in **Narcos** , for example. IRL, in a lot of cases it’s surprisingly difficult to kill a person. Most people, even when mortally wounded, will hang on for a few minutes at least. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/28 "2018-12-07T15:20:29Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Jophiel** : > > I had no problem with 95% of the “bad science” in Ant-Man & Wasp but the fact that the miniaturized cars could keep up with the full sized cars really annoyed me for some reason. I think because I used to read the Sears catalog and daydream about running the RC cars along the expressway at 60mph before I learned what “Scale speed” meant. If I was able to figure this out by age 12, these guys should know it too! The tiny cars keeping up with full-sized ones is one of the few things in the Ant-Man movies that didn’t bother me. My irritation is reserved for the Sears catalog foisting off the absurd concept of “scale speed”. Though actually, Ant-Man wasn’t nearly as jarring as some, because they knew going in that the physics was absurd, and decided to just run with it anyway. I think it actually helped that the special effects weren’t quite as “good”: It made the whole thing feel a little cartoony, and it made a lot better cartoon sense than it did real-world sense. Iron Man not getting squished in his suit never bothered me, because I fanwanked an explanation so quickly for it: Acceleration doesn’t actually squish people; the problem is differential acceleration. If you hit concrete after a long fall, the parts of you in contact with the concrete have much greater acceleration (for a few moments, at least) than the parts of you not in contact. But if you can somehow exert a force on all particles of an object at once, you can make an arbitrarily large acceleration survivable. So I just assume that Stark repulsor rays have some penetration depth comparable to the size of a human body, and that the suit is lined with repulsor fields. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/29 "2018-12-07T15:23:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The tiny cars keeping up with full-sized ones is one of the few things in the Ant-Man movies that didn’t bother me. My irritation is reserved for the Sears catalog foisting off the absurd concept of “scale speed”. With our powers combined, we could happily watch Ant-Man. Or really hate Ant-Man. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/30 "2018-12-07T15:34:04Z")
> [@D\_Odds](#): > > I love superhero fare, but the big “lifting things” often gets me, such as when Supergirl lifted a submarine out of the water. Now, I’m not a structural engineer for submarines, so maybe I’m wrong, but I doubt there is any spot on a submarine where two hands could support its entire weight. Tied into this is catching falling objects. Or in Superman Returns how Superman catches the plummeting airplane by the nose-cone: decelerating a 600 mph vehicle made out of aluminum sheetmetal? Perhaps the implied superpower is projecting a structural integrity field around an object subject to massive acceleration/deceleration forces, or force being applied by human-sized hands instead of a more appropriately wider surface area. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/31 "2018-12-07T16:28:26Z")
> [@Enola\_Straight](#): > > Or in Superman Returns how Superman catches the plummeting airplane by the nose-cone: decelerating a 600 mph vehicle made out of aluminum sheetmetal? > > Perhaps the implied superpower is projecting a structural integrity field around an object subject to massive acceleration/deceleration forces, or force being applied by human-sized hands instead of a more appropriately wider surface area. Somebody (John Byrne?) explained Superman’s powers as being telekinetic. Without that Approved Fanwank, MOST of his feats make zero sense. When I was a kid, he literally was **“Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!”** So as soon as he started making U-turns while flying, all the young fans said “Wait, whaaaa…?” ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/32 "2018-12-07T16:38:15Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > I just note the issue and then go on to enjoy the movie. If it’s a good story, nitpicking the details is just showing off to others how smart your think you are. > > For instance, the geography in the Sherlock Holmes movies is nonsensical. But the movie is still a good one. > > _The Day After Tomorrow_ was wildly wrong about its geography, and only works if Manhattan is on a turntable, but it’s a fun movie. > > _The Core_ has lousy science, but the story is strong. > > It does bother me if they base a plot on a historical anachronism (though not always: _Inglorious Basterds_ was a terrific movie); that’s cheating to make the story work. Well…in my particular case, it’s less how smart I am, than having fist-hand experience with _really_ hot stuff (even if at a safe remove). I was about 100 feet away from a melt cradle that was lying on its side and cooling, but it was still International-Don’t-Shoot-Me-Incandescent-Orange inside. The heat coming off of it was not dissimilar to the blast of heat coming out of your pre-heated oven when you open the oven door. FWIW, I like _The Core_. They had Handwavium/Phlebotinum, so the writers at least understood the issue, and addressed it (however bad the actual science was), and that was good enough for me. Honest-to-God Geologists can chime in and rip the movie to shreds, but I’m not a Geologist. You sound like a more story/character oriented person; surely you’ve seen movies that you overall like, but a character hits a “false note,” breaks character for some reason in order to advance the plot. Or some clunky writing (often enough, there’s a deleted scene that explains it perfectly, but it hit the cutting room floor for some reason) that to _you_, is just cringeworthy jarring. So, same concept, different standard; it’s not a science/technology thing pulling _you_ out of a movie; it a characterization/action, or just bad writing/directing/editing. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/33 "2018-12-07T17:11:27Z")
Violations of Relativity, health, and other things (gravity on spaceships, sound in space, etc) don’t really bother me. What I notice is violations of basic Newtonian mechanics. For example, and I’ve brought it up here before, the Spider Man movie with the Doc Ock train fight scene. Does it bother me that the protagonist developed super powers because he was bitten by a radioactive spider? Not at all. Am I irritated that his arms should be ripped off while he is stopping the train? Not in the slightest. Am I raging because, in the real world, there would be dozens of secondary casualties among the passengers? WTF do I care? Am I reduced to a quivering protoplasm because the Doc Ock origin story is as unscientific as Spideys? Didn’t even think about it until I was typing this, so no. John… the guy twists in midair… did that bother you? No, not really. Probably have seen that move too many times to care any more, tbh. Did the fact that Doc Ock threw SM forward, only to have SM tackle Doc Ock from behind as he lands, in complete violation of how things work on this world… did that bother me? YOU BET YOUR FUCKING LIFE THAT BOTHERED ME! WHAT THE HELL, GUYS??? YOU CAN’T THROW SOMETHING AHEAD OF YOU ONLY TO HAVE IT HIT YOU IN THE BACK! BUNCH OF GODDAMNED STUPID-ASSED FUCKTARDS, THE LOT OF YOU! [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/z00fTwhmYX0/maxresdefault.jpg "Spider-Man 2.1 Extended Train Fight Scene (HD)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z00fTwhmYX0) A-hem. Sorry about that. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/34 "2018-12-07T17:42:51Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > The errors in police shows reach from here to the moon. I couldn’t get past the scene in The Dark Knight where the cops finally, after a massive mobilization and chase, finally catch The Joker – _Public Enemy No. One_ – and… don’t wash his face to get some photos? They just let him keep his grease paint on? I mean, the stuff comes off – it’s coming off when he’s talking to Batman. The various excuses I’ve heard (“Maybe they were afraid to touch him”, “They didn’t want to get sued”, etc) don’t really make sense. I get that it was Rule of Cool and not wanting to de-Joker-ify the iconic character but I see that scene and feel like “Ok, so no one is really trying here”. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/35 "2018-12-07T17:45:24Z")
It all depends on my previous assumptions. For a superhero movie, almost anything goes, because I assume they’re going to use superhero physics. I’d still like their physics to say consistent within a scene, but a lot goes. But the lack of respect for the simple facts of heat flow in _The Day after Tomorrow_ is just not acceptable. It’s freeze ray physics, which I only allow in superhero movies or silly comedies. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/36 "2018-12-07T18:47:05Z")
[A distinct lack of car alarms in Manhattan.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL61G67XD_c&t=0m53s) ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/37 "2018-12-07T18:55:55Z")
I don’t go to movies because my threshold for BS is so low that if it requires an actor to use wires or CGI to do stunts, I’m out. People can’t jump 40 feet straight up or survive getting hit by a car while riding a motorcycle (at high speed) and get up and run away. Been there, done that. Needless to say, Super-hero movies are RIGHT OUT! > [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I get annoyed at a lot of the errors in physics but the one I remember as “I’m done watching this.” was a TV miniseries where in the beginning scene everyone around the world, Los Angeles, New York, London and Moscow, see the Moon at night get hit by an asteroid _at the same time_. I’m not a real big “science guy”, but even I can recognize how egregious an error this is. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/38 "2018-12-07T19:08:07Z")
I try to accept the premise of the work, no matter how outlandish. On rare occasions that proves too challenging. The two things that lead to issues for me is a breakdown of within world consistency or (much worse) characters with overly convenient motivations or psychologies that are a caricature of reality. For example, “All adversaries of the protagonist happen to be motivated by malice or wholly evil motivations.” How convenient! So I guess we can just overlook the collateral damage! Yes, the second one poses challenges for enjoying Hollywood fare. Special effects are nice though. Somebody walks through a plate glass window without serious injury? No problem! ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/39 "2018-12-07T19:08:38Z")
In the recent Fantastic Four starring Ant Man they explained that the Pym particles can actually effect several different cosmic constants. For example Ant Man can affect his own size and still have the same mass. On the other hand he can carry around a ton of apparatus by reducing its weight and mass. In the comic Scott is able to magnify the power of Giant Man while remaining at normal size and hand Dr. Doom his butt. Don’t ask me how Ghost’s powers would work in this equation though.:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689/40 "2018-12-07T19:12:37Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I get annoyed at a lot of the errors in physics but the one I remember as “I’m done watching this.” was a TV miniseries where in the beginning scene everyone around the world, Los Angeles, New York, London and Moscow, see the Moon at night get hit by an asteroid _at the same time_. In the first episode of Futurama they show the entire world celebrating the start of the new year at once. Africa, India, Tokyo, Rome, London, and New York City are all shown counting down to New Year’s Day simultaneously even though it would staggered because of the time zones. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/threshold-of-disbelief/825689.md?page=3)